Where are they????

So, I'm sure all you astute readers are wondering... "Where are they? Have they fallen off a cliff? (a few times) Have they drowned in a river? (almost but much closer to freezing) Or have they found a little paridise of rock and been just too darned busy climbing? (much closer to the truth)"

Let's back track. Last you heard we were in Bologna, heading onwards to Parma and then Torino. Well we left Bologna as per schedule and drove into Parma. There we ate some proscuitto. It was good, but expensive and practically identical to all the other proscuittos we've eaten throughout Italy. So onward and upwards we thought... Of course good fortune can only last so long and as we drove I saw this naggling little light on my dashboard. The battery light was flashing on and off and on and off in a meaningless attempt to communicate with me. I obviously was unable to understand the nuacences of a 1981 westfalia light communication. So upon arrival to Torino we headed into an internet cafe for some research. The connection was terrible and the machines extremely buggy (one of the reasons the blog has been thus neglected) however I was able to determine that the problem was with my battery! Ah ha the battery light implies something is wrong with the battery. Brilliant German engineering. (and poor google skills). So off to the dealership we went. The dealership service was of course closed on saturday so they told us to come back on monday. "Monday" we exclaimed a look of horror on our faces. "What are we going to do until monday?"

Thus commenced a three day unplanned stop in Torino. The remainder of saturday was spent celebrating canada day with some fajita's. The most Canadian thing we could find in the super market. Yes, I ashamed. Sunday was spent trying to sleep in while some dudes picked through the dumpsters across the street. We wandered around to a really good gelataria where we cried our sorrows into some gelato. Monday we found some good news! The problem with Lucy was the regulator of the alternator. Something was shorter than it was supposed to be. The service department was VERY helpful to us. It only cost about 5 days of food! So we will be hungry when we return to Canada. (I love my Dad!) We also met another fellow from rockclimbing.com named Christian. It is my informed opinion that European phone numbers are too complex for my poor Canadian brain. Christian had to spell out exactly how to call him after I tried and got a very curt response from some dude: The Number is NOT correct. We met, talked climbing, had pizza and planned for the next day.

That evening we found a nice piazza, the same one where we would leave Lucy for the next day, and started to settle in to sleep. Kiddy corner from us was a hooker struting her stuff. Emilie looked at her (we are starting to get used to hookers everywhere in Italy including the middle of nowhere) and wondered how long it would take her to get picked up. I said 5 minutes. She didn't believe it. So we watched for a few minutes then started to prepare to sleep. Another couple of minutes passed and low and behold a car pulled up and she was gone. 4.5 minutes. Then the question came up, how long until she would be back. I said, 10 minutes. Emilie again figured it would be longer. 9.5 minutes later she had returned. Wow! I'm good. After this, I guessed it would take her another 5 minutes to get picked up. 2 minutes later she had hopped into another car. Emilie owes me alot of money! At this point we went to sleep and never noticed her come back again.

The following morning, Christian arrived bright and early and we set off into the Magical land of Valle dell'Orco (aka Paradise Rocks). The climb of choice was a 8 pitch 5c (5.9) "Nautalus" that scaled El Sergente. Yes to those in the know, the name is a referance to El Capitan. Neither Emilie nor I really register the existance of a chimney pitch rather kept hearing "super classic". So off we went, I took the first pitch a nice layed back 5b (5.8) and the second pitch which is forgotten by all. (obviously a forgettable pitch) The third pitch, which Christian led, was the chimney pitch. There was no gear except for one bolt 2/3 of the way up. Christia grunted his way up in good style (at least I assume it was good style cause we couldn't see him) and then it was our turns to go. Emilie went first. She was a bit tentitive but made it through the most difficult part of the chimney with little more than a whimper or five. I didn't make it. The chimney, a squeeze chimney was just slightly too small for me to comfortably jam my knees, feet and ass on the rock. Instead I was forced to torque off my knees in a manner as painful as it is difficult to describe. Halfway up I torqued one final time, gave a great cry of pain, then fell down the chimney until the rope above and my butt caught me in the rock. Most painful thing I've ever done while climbing (fortunatly the knee is fine if a bit scraped up). Christian lowered a rope to me and I was able to haul myself up the chimney in about as poor form as was available to me. But it worked. For last chimney bit, both Emilie and I chose to take the face option and jam the thin finger crack to the belay. Moral: Never climb chimneys.

The next pitch (which I led) was a simple pitch which led to a large grassy ledge (VERY LARGE) upon which we untied and wandered to the next section of the climb. Unsure exactly where the climb went, Christian led up into the unknown. After getting briefly lost, he led us into a nice dihedral then a difficult dihedral with a cam stuck in the crux handhold. Exiting the dihedral he went over to a tree where you could either climb the tree with crappy handholds or jam up the PERFECT hand crack. Both Emilie and Christian opted for the tree climb while I jamed the crack. Mmmm crack. The small section of perfect crack was enough to make me forget the entire chimney episode and like the route once again. At this point, with 2 pitches left to climb, we had to bail due to rain. So we did. That evening, in search of chicken wings (shout out to mugs! I miss you!) we stopped at an Irish pub and found out that not only do Italians not make chicken wings but they also don't make good burgers. The beer was good though. Yay, Irish beer. (I have yet to find a good Italian beer)

The following day, both Emilie and I were sore and dispite our best intentions of going to climb we ended up shopping and spending time on the internet (unfortunatly a small family emergency has neccesitated a hold in my vacation and on the 13th I will be makeing my way to Rome to deal with some things. Fortunatly, a friend of Emilie will be making her way to meet us and they will be going together to Croatia for a week while I get things figured out). We didn't get out to the crag until 8pm. At that point we tried the famous Kosterlitz crack an amazing(ly hard) splitter crack on a boulder. It was hard and I didn't get off the ground. So we went to eat. The area near the boulder said no overnight parking, so we drove somewhere more secluded and parked there for the night. Dinner was a complex affair involving 3 pots, 2 bowls, 2 mugs and several forks and knives. Penne Primavera with garlic bread(ish) and mixed salad.

On Thursday Emilie and I set off bright and early to climb Pesche d'Aprile (April fools) 6 pitch (170m) 5c. The climb was fantastic with plenty of varied climbing including jam cracks, layback flakes, juggy ceilings and a phenomenal dihedral which I think is the first 5.9 pitch I have ever led cleanly on gear. (yay me) We ate leftovers from dinner the previous night. We also took a nice swim in the near by river. I'm not sure if it was colder because of our lack of clothing or not but BRRRR it was cold.

Friday, to recuperate, we decided to crag. So we hiked up to El Sergente to climb a scythe like 6a (5.10a). The climb started with a dihedral for 20 feet followed by 10 feet of jam crack. A 20 foot hand jam rightward traverse led to a short 6 foot vertical section (the crux) followed by 10 feet of curving vertical finger jams with tenous smears and a final 5 foot finger traverse on shitty chains before a massive flake led to the chains. I hung on pretty much every piece of gear I placed, but was able to climb the route without pulling any gear. After I finished the route, Emilie took a run at it and climbed it in good style only falling a couple times while trying to pull the crux. I took a second run up the climb on toprope and was able to do it and only fell once while trying to transfer my weight from the hand traverse into the vertical section. Great climb. Following this, we went to a lakeside crag to climb some easier routes and get Emilie some practice placing gear. Alas, we couldn't swim in the lake as it was a dam lake. Yesterday evening we discouvered an evil in Valle dell'Orco. A pizzaria that ranks in the top 3 we have had in Europe so far. My excuse (since we will be eating there everyday for the next couple of weeks) is that we are only going to be taking one or two massive road trips through Europe so we should enjoy the pizza. The pizza place also made a mistake and gave us a litre of really good wine when we only asked for 1/2 a litre. The girl puts it down, I ask "Is that a litre?" She replies, "No no that's a half litre". I look at it, that's the biggest damn half letre I've seen in my life. Turns out there was a mistake but they only charged us for half a litre. The pity is that I had to drive so I had to moderate my drinking so some of the wine went unfinished.

Today Emilie and I attempted a climb called Spigolo (5 pitch, 145m 5c) Due to a lack of sleep (possibly caused by too much wine) and a heavy butt (possibly caused by too much Italian food) I had to aid through the crux of the route 3 pitches in. (a 5c (5.9) over hanging crack, the crux as usual being pulling the lip) The effort exhausted me and after Emilie reached me at the belay, we bailed from the climb. We will return to the climb in a few days with renewed vigour!

And now we are here, in a little town about 30 minutes from Torino and an hour from the climbing area writing for you so you may to enjoy our adventures. Oh just to make everybody who climbs just a little more jealous... everything we've climbed on in the last week has been bomber granite.

Stay tuned for the next post, upcoming, another week in Valle Dell'Orco. Yee HAW! (and maybe pictures)